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One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoI wonder why they're not using thermal cameras. Snakes are ectothermic, but they still show up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0
- burcs 2y agoAgreed – it feels like sending drones out the levee access roads they mention with thermal cameras would be their best bet.
- skeeter2020 2y agoHN: What problem CAN'T be solved with more technology?
- atourgates 2y agoI was thinking about technological solutions. Maybe some combination of cameras (thermal, traditional, maybe even Lidar) combining data and processing it to detect at least likely pythons. It wouldn't have to be perfect, but I imagine such a solution could be more effective than even the most experienced and talented human python spotter.
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoYes a thermal cam on a drone plus maybe a bit of AI could save a lot of time.
- skeeter2020 2y agoIf you're paying people < minimum wage on a per piece basis, is time the dimension where you should focus?
- munificent 2y agoThermal cameras have a fairly narrow FOV. When you're moving at (albeit slow) driving speeds and trying to see everything around you, trying to look through a thermal camera and scan around would probably be too slow and end up costing you more time. Also consider that there are plenty of other native snakes the same size as a small python that will show up as a false positive on a thermal camera.
- lq9AJ8yrfs 2y agoLenses are a thing in the thermal spectra, but you have a point that they are very expensive if your desired objective doesn't coincide with someone else's bulk use case. They are also typically hard to care for and some of them are toxic. For magnification at least, doesnt help with hunting pythons probably, you can use the focusing lenses for laser cutters, which typically work in thermal wavelengths, to turn a handheld thermal camera into a microscope. Or is it a "milliscope" i guess owing to the limit imposed by the coarser wavelegths. I wonder how much optical solutions could be solved with the "wrong" lens paired with a well trained transformer or similar modern AI. If google or apple can deblur your family photos is it unrealistic to think you could deblur a thermal image acquired using found lenses? Crystallography algorithms might even work out of the box? Or be adaptable hopefully?
- trhway 2y agohow do we know that the Florida python bounty doesnt repeat the Cobra effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
- burcs 2y agoI was thinking the same thing. However the article says they are only letting in select people and they are getting paid close to minimum wage. I imagine it would not be worth the hassle of breeding and releasing pythons, and the character of the people they bring in to help is vetted as well.
- Retric 2y agoIt’s an hourly wage and the pay isn’t high enough to cover costs of breeding pythons. A python can weigh over 200lb. It takes a lot to support a snake that big and they monitor sizes to ensure the catch matches what you would expect from a wild population.
- CamperBob2 2y agoIt’s an hourly wage and the pay isn’t high enough to cover costs of breeding pythons. "Allow me to introduce myself," says the VC.
- culi 2y agoYou have to be licensed/hired for it
- potato3732842 2y agoThat means there's a licensing department somewhere that wouldn't have jobs if the pythons went away completely.
- NikkiA 2y agoIt's usually a part of the local (town, county, state) wildlife management department, who are usually overworked as it is; and would welcome one job less to do - they'd probably love to go back to just being 'the dog catcher' like 100 years ago.
- spacebanana7 2y agoIntroducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra might be a more scalable solution. It’s very hard to shoot all the members of an invasive species.
- trhway 2y agoI think i read somewhere that people in snake infested areas like to have cobras in their villages as cobras prey on smaller venomous snakes.
- skeeter2020 2y agoonly if you own a mongoose!
- ceejayoz 2y ago“No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.“
- slothtrop 2y agoSoon we'll be trying to telegraph just how much of a cultural phenomenon this show was, and come off like Abe.
- razakel 2y agoI yell at clouds and I'm only in my 30s...
- doubled112 2y agoAre you a OneLogin customer? It was a rough week.
- southernplaces7 2y agoHad to go rewatch it on Youtube... Thanks for that good laugh...
- jospf 2y ago[flagged]
- nicholasbraker 2y ago"Oh, that Python!"
- annexrichmond 2y agoHey it’s not my fault my company chose Python!
- amelius 2y agoI thought this was about a man with a grudge against the GIL.
- xyst 2y agoSpecifically python 2 :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- soneca 2y agoVery well written article. Informative, sensible and articulate without going that New Yorker style that I find boring.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gaws 2y ago> without going that New Yorker style What is that style, exactly?
- soneca 2y ago“New Yorker” magazine I mean. Very long-winded, going into literary tangents, often giving the impression that showcasing the writer’s literary skills are more important than the subject.
- bbor 2y agoGreat article! That said, the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended. ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in ridding Florida of literal monsters, but in general, some of our fights against invasive species just seem... IDK, vain. Brazen. Arrogant. Like, they're considering an owl hunting program in the western US to protect the slower, shittier owls that already live there. What's the point? Will we have owl hunting season until the sun expands? She has been bitten more times than she can count; though not venomous, pythons possess rows of curved, needle-sharp teeth. .. “Use a floodlight to scan the ground near the truck, and look for an iridescence and a pattern... Shout ‘Python!’ if you think you see something, even if you’re not positive—it’s better to be wrong than to miss one." ...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this problem? I understand that snakes can "remain conscious" after injury, but wrestling the pythons into a cage so you can execute them in your garage seems like a step too far. Maybe I'm underestimating how hard it would be to shoot a snake? ETA: they do eventually reference "researchers using drones", so we're not the only ones to think of that. Not to rejoice in anyone losing their job of course, but I do hope that some automation makes this more feasible.
- throwup238 2y ago> ...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this problem? It takes an average of ten hours of searching per snake during which time they mostly drive around so I don’t think drones are a realistic option here due to flight time. There’s little benefit to searching far beyond the roads/levees because the swamp is a very tough terrain to navigate and it gets dangerous thanks to the gators. Can’t use (real) night vision googles because any stray light from the car could blind the wearer and it would kill the driver’s peripheral vision making it impractical to drive.
- ksymph 2y agoA single shot is unlikely to kill, and in these areas a snake can very quickly disappear into water or foliage. I doubt drones or night vision would help much for similar reasons - the issue lies as much in being able to reach the snakes as it does in being able to locate them. The Everglades are incredibly thick, a snake will easily outpace and hide from a human outside of roads. It does seem like there should be a better way than wrestling them but it's hard to say what that might be.
- dmonitor 2y agoSo when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throwup238 2y agoWhen you find enough suicidal people to establish “cat hunter” as a profession and they survive long enough to make it a competition. Every cat lover with a gun would be out hunting them back.
- justin66 2y agoThe parent comment was created by dog people attempting to move the Overton window.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 2y agoWell first, I think there would need to be cat hunters. I don’t think there are. Second, we’ve decided as a society that a particular set of animals are ones we love and protect. Dogs, cats, horses, etc. So it’s very unlikely any hunter of this class of animal would be palatable to our society. Maybe in another country where they don’t view this class of animal in the same way. Third, I am totally in agreement that cats kill so many birds every year. We keep our cat indoors for this reason.
- lupusreal 2y agoIt might just be an urban legend, but I have heard that some American soldiers sent to Afghanistan were told that shooting stray dogs would help their reputation with locals. I think rabies is a prevalent problem in that part of the world, so it seems plausible.
- dosinga 2y agohttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7076733/Catman-Kangaroo-Island-trapping-killing-feral-felines-20-years.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7076733/Catman-Kang...
- swayvil 2y agoSo I was in the drainage ditch having a bit of opossum when this old lady rolls up in a blinged-out pickup and starts taking selfies.
- kamma4434 2y ago[flagged]
- mminer237 2y agoThis might be a bit gruesome, but why not shoot the snakes the on site? That seems way easier and faster than physically wrestling dangerous snakes sometimes bigger than yourself, throwing them in your truck, and shooting them in your garage. Is it just the solemnity? The chance of missing and it escaping and the difficulty of wrestling with a gun?
- kkielhofner 2y agoThey get paid per verified kill: https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program No idea how it actually works but shooting them where they are has to be tough to verify.
- thfuran 2y agoIt has to be easier to get a dead python into your truck than a live one, right?
- beretguy 2y agoYeah, that makes total sense, but we are talking about Florida.
- xyst 2y agoYou assume you are able to kill a python in one shot. If you don’t get the “kill” shot, your prey runs off into the woods and now you spend time tracking its blood and steps. Then you ignore the noise factor which can scare off other pythons in the area.
- kortex 2y agoI have never tried to shoot a snake but I imagine their high aspect ratio makes getting a critical hit on them challenging, compared to just "yoinking" them. Garret Galvin @fishingarrett has made a name for himself yoinking all sorts of critters in the wild but in particular seems to be targeting invasive pythons in the Everglades. He's very entertaining if you like nature stuff, he's like Steve Irwin's spiritual successor.
- aranchelk 2y ago> the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. Typo? Creationism? That seems like a very short period of time.
- neerajk 2y agoThats when the sea receded, so its "only" 5,000 years old after all.
- gs17 2y agohttps://www.everglades.org/early-formation/ https://www.everglades.org/early-formation/ >Only about 5000 years ago did South Florida’s climate take on its current sub-tropical and monsoonal character of dry winters followed by hot moist summers with large amounts of rain (on average 50-60 inches per year), as seas that surround it on three sides warm and evaporate.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- culi 2y agoThe Amazon rainforest itself is also not that much older than 10k years. In fact, there's some evidence that humans played a major role in its transition from grassland to jungle
- potato3732842 2y agoThe unique ecosystems and their locations around the world are a direct consequence of the oceans and weather. The oceans and weather were wildly different during the last ice age and consequently the ecosystem present in many places was wildly different than it is today. Even only going back a couple thousand years the changes have been huge (desertification in the ME and North Africa).
- spankalee 2y agoWhat's the point? The pythons are there now, and there's no way to capture them all.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agobiodiversity == resilience. If we let the planet turn into a near-monoculture of kudzu and cockroaches (or whatever the stable equilibrium might look like), we die. If we wait to act until the web of relationships is simple enough that we can predict the particular nature of that death, it seems likely that it'll be too late. This does seem like a doomed-to-fail stopgap kind of solution, but sometimes stopgaps are all you've got.
- munificent 2y agoFrom the article: So far, the data suggests that native wildlife is responding in the areas the contractors patrol; though they might not be surging back, mammals and birds are finding the toehold they need to survive. While no one believes the pythons will ever be fully eradicated, Kirkland is hopeful that in twenty years, native wildlife might have regained more than a toehold, and the issue might lessen into something close to manageable.
- kman82 2y ago[flagged]
- rietta 2y agoHere is an official Florida government source on the humane methods for killing a python. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/humane-killing-methods/ https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/humane-... - Your method should result in the animal losing consciousness immediately. - You should then destroy the animal's brain by “pithing” which prevents the animal from regaining consciousness. Looking at the diagram, the head is very small in comparison to the entire body. Perhaps that is why shooting is discouraged. I cannot find a source that states that shooting is illegal. There are limitations on where pythons can be hunted, which is on private land with permission or some public lands. That is mostly going to be a safety and private property protection purposes. The website states "Members of the public may not transport pythons alive and must humanely kill pythons at the capture location. However, python skins or meat may be kept and/or sold."
- nanolith 2y agoShooting invasive species is definitely legal in Florida assuming that you have permission of the land owner or are otherwise in a location where shooting is allowed (i.e. not in a municipality that bans the gunfire). It has to be done humanely: if you hit the invasive animal, you are responsible for dispatching it as quickly as possible. If you don't dispatch the animal, you can easily run foul of animal cruelty laws here. I have been hoping for a health improvement so I can go on a guided python hunt. I have read up on it quite a bit. Not only can I get python leather to make a nice wallet, belt, and a pair of boots, but I can do so while doing a small part to curb an invasive species that is wrecking havoc on the ecosystem in South Florida.
- rietta 2y agoI hope your health does improve and you get to go on your hunt! Sounds like a good thing to plan for. Leathermaking is a good use too considering the unsafe mercury levels found in the Python meat.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoI say we just give Florida back to Spain and call it a day.
- hinkley 2y agoShould we be capturing the large ones, sterilizing them and rereleasing like we do for cats? I wonder how you tag a python as spayed though. No ears.
- psalzzz 2y agoNo, they should be eliminated immediately. Finding a living mammal in the everglades is becoming rare with these snakes destroying the ecosystem. I spent several days hunting for Pythons earlier this year and didn't see even a single deer or rabbit.
- hinkley 2y agoBut one clutch of eggs will replace the pythons you kill and then some. A neutered python puts predation pressure on the rest. Creates crowding.
- psalzzz 2y agoWe need to relieve the pressure. Pythons in the everglades have ate 90% of the mammals in the 'glades. The bigger they grow, the more they consume. While they may also eat a few other pythons, it's not a common occurrence. If only we could make a virus or alter their DNA to wipe them out ;-)
- MikeKusold 2y agoWe shouldn't even be doing that for cats. Domestic cats are an invasive species that decimate the native wildlife. "free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."[0] Since we're talking about Florida, this is what their Fish & Game department has to say on the topic: > * Domestic cats are not a part of Florida’s natural ecosystem. A single individual free-ranging cat may kill 100 or more birds and mammals per year. Scientists in Wisconsin estimate that cats kill at least 7.8 million birds per year in that state alone. Even cats with bells on their collars kill or injure birds and small mammals. > * Cats compete with native wildlife and can spread disease. Outdoor cats have been identified as the primary host in the transmission of toxoplasmosis to wildlife, a disease which has caused death in manatees and other mammals. [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 [1]: https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/feral-cats/ https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/feral-cats/
- 1234letshaveatw 2y agoShe ain't got nothing on the Python Cowboy https://www.youtube.com/@PythonCowboy https://www.youtube.com/@PythonCowboy
- AlexandrB 2y agoThere's also this guy: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8 I don't know how his numbers stack up, but he's amusing to watch.
- mhb 2y agoI wonder if there's a way to attract them.
- charlangas 2y agoAs a snake keeper, I imagine the best way to attract them would be with food (i.e. rats), but then you run the risk of also attracting other native predators as well. But to build on your idea, a trap that a python can enter but not exit without human assistance could be interesting. You can check the traps periodically and free any native wildlife that happens to enter them.
- SoftTalker 2y agoVery interesting, and a welcome alternative to the tech-focused stuff that dominates here. Thanks for posting.
- kleton 2y agoWhat if they released honey badgers in Florida? Not saying they're any more native than the pythons, but at least they have personality.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- syngrog66 2y agowrong type of python for HN
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- sourcepluck 2y agoI was waiting for the gruesome tale of a Ruby dev who'd had enough
- duud 2y agoUnderrated related show https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14129378/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14129378/
- belter 2y agoWait...So this is not a thread about debugging code?